Why Did The Turtle Cross The Road? Series

Why Did the Turtle Cross the Road?

US Highway 27 near Tallahassee, Florida has been called the deadliest road in the world—for turtles. Evidently, thousands of turtles attempt to make the courageous cross hoping to reach greener turtle pastures on the other side of the road, but tragically see their lives cut short by the oncoming vehicles traveling on speeds far greater than turtle pace. Local conservationist Matt Aresco has fought a decade long struggle to save the terrapins from destruction, and on the surface seems to have won his case for a construction plan is currently in place to make a giant tunnel for them to pass through freely.

The problem is that this 13 foot, $3.4 Million tunnel is not going to work (yup, it’s only 13 feet). The reason for failure is simple, the vast area of road crossing is so large that there is no way a turtle, a slow moving reptile with a carapace on his back and the brains to match, has the mental capacity to search for and locate an area of safe crossing. If they could do that, these hardshells would have already surveyed the highway and deemed it unnecessary to cross because of the high risk of fatality. An attempt similar to this, know as the Toad Tunnel, has already been tried to save frogs in California, but to no avail.

You know what I think? I think in many ways these turtles are a lot like us humans. We are similar to these turtles because we also are willing to take extreme and potentially deadly measures in search of a new horizon, a new future, or some activity that is new and exciting.

Luke 15:13-16 tells the story of two sons. “After a few days, the younger son gathered together all he had and left on a journey to a distant country, and there he squandered his wealth with a wild lifestyle. Then after he had spent everything, a severe famine took place in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and worked for one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He was longing to eat the carob pods the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.”

It seems crazy, a young man giving up all the security in the world just to venture away from the safety he knows in order to achieve a short-term and false happiness. Sort of like a turtle crossing a busy highway, wouldn’t you say? But there is one thing that makes people far different than a turtle, and that is we have the ability to see and discern where there is safety. And the tunnel we seek is not just another way to cross a busy highway, but the tunnel we search for is the Lord Jesus Christ.

The tunnel of Christ’s love of safety and protection is open to every one of us. Let us walk their together, let us seek Him as one, and let us return our lives to a place of peace and serenity of knowing that the Lord God has conquered all. Why does the believer cross that road? To get to the Love of Christ.